Simultaneous reduction of supply and threshold voltages for low-power silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS designs without suffering performance losses will eventually reach the limit of diminishing returns as static power dissipation becomes a significant portion of the total power equation. In order to meet the opposing requirements of high-performance during circuit/system active periods, and low power during circuit/system idle periods, a dynamic threshold voltage control scheme is needed.
For SOI metal oxide field effect transistors (MOSFETs), there are two modes of operation: 1) fully depleted (FD), and 2) partially depleted (PD) channel region (i.e., body). In conventional strongly fully depleted SOI devices, the silicon film thickness is usually less than or equal to half the depletion width of the bulk device. The surface potentials at the front and back interfaces are strongly coupled to each other and capacitively coupled to the front-gate and substrate through the front-gate dielectric and the buried oxide, respectively. Therefore, the potential throughout the silicon film, and hence the charge, is determined by the bias conditions on both the front-gate and the substrate. By replacing the substrate with a back-gate, the device becomes a dual-gated device.
The fully depleted design is unique to SOI because the front-gate and the back-gate both have control of the charge in the silicon film. In the strongly partially depleted device, the back-gate or the substrate has no influence on the front surface potential. In the middle regime, the device is nominally partially depleted and can become fully depleted by applying bias, thus, coupling of the front and back surface potentials still occurs.
For low power back-gated SOI CMOS operation, back-gate voltages have to be minimized. This will require the use of a back-gate dielectric that has a thickness of about 3 to about 6 nm for sub-50 nm devices. Unfortunately, such a thin back-gate dielectric results in an increase in gate to source/drain capacitance; except if the back-gate structure is made self-aligned to the front gate and the source/drain extensions, hence minimizing this capacitance, which in turn, enhances the device and circuit performance.
To date, no adequate means is provided that can fabricate back-gated fully depleted CMOS devices in which the back-gate is self-aligned to the device front-gate as well as the source/drain extensions. In view of the state of the art mentioned above, there is a continued need for providing an SOI MOSFET device that includes such self-alignment between the back-gate, front-gate and source/drain extensions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides SOI CMOS technology whereby a polysilicon, i.e., polySi, back-gate is used to control the threshold voltage of the front-gate device, and the nMOS and pMOS back-gates are switched independently of each other and the front gates. Specifically, the present invention provides a method of fabricating a back-gated fully depleted CMOS device in which the device's back-gate is self-aligned to the device's front-gate as well as the source/drain extensions. Such a structure minimizes the capacitance, while enhancing the device and circuit performance.
The back-gated fully depleted CMOS device of the present invention is fabricated using SIMOX (separation by ion implantation of oxygen) or bonded SOI wafers, wafer bonding and thinning, polySi etching, low-pressure chemical vapor deposition and chemical-mechanical polishing.
Specifically, the method of the present invention comprises the steps of:
providing a structure comprising a carrier wafer, an oxide layer positioned on the carrier wafer, a polySi back-gate located on the oxide layer, a back-gate dielectric located on said polySi back-gate, and a Si-containing layer located on said back-gate dielectric;
forming a channel region into a portion of said Si-containing layer,
forming a front gate region comprising a front-gate dielectric, a front polySi gate and sacrificial spacers atop said channel region;
forming undercutting shallow trench isolation regions in said structure;
removing the sacrificial spacers and forming source/drain extensions into the channel region; and
forming gate spacers atop the top of the channel region and source/drain regions in said channel region, wherein said polySi back-gate is self-aligned with the front polySi gate and the source/drain extensions.